My Favorite Takes On Superman

It’s that time of the year again. Not Easter. That’s a couple of days away, though I guess it is Good Friday. Bad timing given all the attempts to stop trying to compare Kal-El to Jesus. Yes, it’s also Superman Day, the celebration of the first appearance of Clark “Superman” Kent and Lois Lane. Yes, people forget she debuted here as well. But she’s not my favorite superhero, so we’re talking Superman. I just want to acknowledge she got her start here.

So what do I do this year? In a previous Superman Day I already did a two part article about my favorite Superman comic book stories. I constantly bring up my favorite Superman comic and have shown you my favorite moment from Superman: The Animated Series. I have an entire YouTube playlist just for Superman defense videos I’ve collected around the site. And I’ve gone over numerous times why Superman matters so much to me and why he’s my favorite superhero. So what do I do this year?

Superman depictions.

I love the comics, but not everybody reads comics, and not all of them are media snobs who look down on comics. Some people just don’t like to read comics, and that’s fine. I enjoy novels. I enjoy video games. I enjoy TV shows and movies. So for this year’s Superman Day lets go over the shows and movies I think best understand what I love about Superman. Some omissions might surprise you. I like the George Reeves series well enough but they never gave Superman a decent threat. The first Christopher Reeves movie is okay but I have…notes, and I defend the Supergirl movie so you know I’m weird. Smallville is Superman Minus Superman and got a lot of the DC Universe history wrong. Superman & Lois just didn’t impress me in the first episode. Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman has a great line “Superman is what I do, Clark Kent is who I am” (paraphrase) but I have my issues with some of their takes as well, plus how the showrunners decided they could tell the source material when they can and can’t have the couple marry until the “important media” was good and ready. And while Super Friends is one of my favorite shows even today, and I’m happy MeTV Toons is airing the series, it’s all story and no character development until the final season, and Superman’s focus story is doing his death before the comics ever considered it. At least with Doomsday. So what’s on my list?

The Fleischer/Famous Studios shorts

The only version that kept the original comic ideas of Clark being raised in an orphanage and no name for the scientist or original Kryptonian name. The shorts are also credited with introducing the power of flight since just jumping around in the pre-parkour days looked silly. (There is an actual short where he jumps and not flies and they had a point.) Fleischer studios also lacked the character development but they were shorts. Even the longer Super Friends stories, an ensemble show, couldn’t find the time for it. Meanwhile, Superman dealt with monsters and mad scientists, though no alien invasions. When Paramount bought the studio and redubbed it Famous Studios they shifted to crooks and World War II enemies, kept the amazing animation. I love watching these old shorts, and the animation was one of the inspirations for the visuals of Batman: The Animated Series.

The Superman serials

Kirk Ayan is underrated as Superman. The creators wanted the kids to see Superman, not an actor, which would later be Richard Donner’s approach to his casting. So Ayan goes uncredited in the serials, Superman and Atom Man Vs Superman, the first post-comics appearance of Lex Luthor. Ayan makes Clark and Superman feel so distinct you can believe they’re considered two separate people, an argument us Clark defenders have been insisting for years. It’s not just the glasses.

Luthor is your typical serial mad scientist, but that’s what he was in the comics at the time. The first serial’s enemy, the Spider Lady, didn’t just run a gang of three people like the later Adventures Of Superman TV show. She had a full fledged criminal organization and her own gadgets to use, plus she learned about Kryptonite. At Superman’s power level at the time, they make serious threats to Superman and the Daily Planet crew. Sure, they used hand drawn animation because computer animation didn’t exist yet to show off his powers, but it’s the only silly thing in either serial. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. I’ll do a Saturday Night Showcase on it tomorrow.

Ruby-Spears’ Superman

Beau Weaver, like Ayan, is the most underrated Superman. Like Bud Coyer before him–you know, the guy from the radio show, Fleischer shorts, and Filmation series–Weaver was able to vocally keep Clark and Superman apart so you couldn’t tell they were the same character if you didn’t know your Superman lore. So far no other actor voice or physical has been able to really do what Weaver, Ayan, Coyer, and Chris Reeves have pulled off in making the disguise believable, and Reeves still overdid it at times in my opinion. I think one of the Superboy actors came close as well, but it’s been so long since I’ve watched the live-action Superboy series to recall. I should rewatch that some day. Maybe it deserves to be on the list.

The show came out during the transition between pre-Crisis and post-Crisis DC Comics, and the show reflected that with Luthor still having his company and a Kryptonite ring but still being a criminal scientist. Superboy was gone from history so Ma & Pa Kent, introduced in the Filmation Superboy segments since they were dead in Clark’s adulthood at the time, are now alive to be Clark’s parents. Wonder Woman makes a guest appearance. And all of the characters were designed closer to the comics at the time, with a theme song that included the classic narration and a variation of the John Williams theme. This really showed off the world of Superman, not just a version of it outside the comics. I wish this got more attention, and the “Superman Family Album” segments are more enjoyable early Clark than Smallville gave me as the show went on.

Superman: The Animated Series

The Fleischer and Ruby-Spears versions vie for my favorite, but even I admit the DCAU version is arguably the best. Great action. Great characters. Progression. If anything the two Justice League shows held him back for most of the series because we lost the supporting cast and his solo adventures. If you don’t think it should be on a list like this, you clearly haven’t watched it.

Superman Vs The Elite

This scene alone should explain why. This is Superman to me. If I’m praising voice actors, all credit to George Newbern. He might not separate “Clark” and “Superman” like Coyer and Weaver do, but he delivered this speech so beautifully and did such a great job in the story I’ll forgive him for it. “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice & The American Way” is one of the best showings as to who Superman is and why. I want to own a copy someday, but I’m glad I got to see this movie. THIS is Superman to me.

What are some of your favorite Superman shows? I haven’t seen them all, but these are the ones I love watching over and over, the ones that speak to everything I love about Superman, his world, his powers, his friends and enemies, and all the other cool things about Superman’s world. Happy birthday, Kal-El and Lois Lane-Kent. And thanks to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and all the writers who knew how to write my favorite superhero, not because of what he can do but why he does it and what he does with those powers. I came for the super, I stayed for the man.